Xbox One Gets its First Big Update of the Year

On February 5th Larry Hryb “Major Nelson”,Director of Programming for the Microsoft gaming network, announced that the company is rolling out the first system update of 2015. He comments that Microsoft has made a commitment to listen to feedback from the community of Xbox Live and it will continue to deliver on that promise. He states that the company is always listening to the thoughts of the community and continues to improve functionality to enhance the gaming experience on Xbox One.

First Major System Update of 2015 Brings Improvements for Several Features of the Xbox One Console

This month will see improvements on the Xbox One controller, enhanced Party Chat and added TV features like trending to OneGuide, and bringing “trick play” and live streaming on Windows Phone and Android to Xbox Live members in Europe using the Digital TV Tuner. Additionally, you can discover new content from your favorite games and further personalize your dashboard, among other cool new features.

Here’s the complete list of the features added to Xbox One:

Controller improvements – We’re excited to improve stability and speed on the Xbox One controller in the following ways:

Quick Connect – Previously, controller connections to Xbox One took approximately four-to-five seconds when powering on a controller. Now, it will only take about two seconds.

Stability improvements – The update also provides a number of fixes that address some of the controller disconnect issues reported by Xbox One owners.To download the update, connect a controller to your Xbox One with a USB cable. Keep any headsets connected to the controller. Connect to Xbox Live. Press the Menu. Go to Settings > Devices & accessories and select the controller. If you have multiple controllers attached, you can select Buzz – which will cause the selected controller to vibrate. Then select Update to download the new firmware to the controller attached via the USB cable, and the screen will show the Updating controller … progress screen. When you see the Controller updated screen, press ‘B’ to go back to the Devices & accessories main page. Reselect the controller. The Firmware version should now be: 1.2.2236.0

Game hubs –These are the go-to centers for interesting content, tips and tricks for your favorite titles. Every Xbox One game will have a game hub where you can see which friends are playing the game, compete with your friends in game leaderboards, dive into the coolest game clips and game broadcasts, and follow the game’s top broadcasters and clip creators.To get to the game hub for your favorite game, find a game in your pins, recently played list, or My games and apps, then press theMenu button and select View game hub. You can also search for any game in the Xbox Store and click on the Game Hub tile from the game’s store page.On the game’s activity feed, game developers can share interesting content with anyone who follows the game. You’ll be the first to get news on upcoming updates and DLC, featured game clips and trailers, behind the scenes content and more. All the news about your favorite games is delivered right to your console. Additionally, you can now choose to Follow a game from a game hub, which will incorporate the game’s activity feed content into your activity feed.

Party chat updates – We made several changes to party chat in recent weeks, including:

Chat connection status – New icons have been added to let you know the current status of a chat connection in your party. A Clockicon means the connection is being made. A Squawker Ring icon indicates the connection was successful, and actively shows who is speaking. An X icon means that networking limitations (such as a Strict NAT) are preventing the chat connection from completing for specific participants.

Improved connectivity between multiple participants with Strict or Moderate NATs – We also made some connectivity improvements to party chat in partial mesh situations when multiple participants are behind moderate or strict NATs with their home gateways/routers.

Game and party invitations – To help you more quickly know who is inviting you to what, we made improvements to game and party invitations. Now, you can see which of your friends is inviting you and what party or game the invite is for, without having to wait for the text to scroll on the notification.

Performance improvements – We also decreased the time it takes to set up person-to-person (P2P) connectivity for party chat and streamlined the retry logic for setting up party chat sessions.

Custom backgrounds and tile transparency – We’ve added tile transparency to the Home tiles to make your background images more visible. As a reminder, to set a custom background, go toSettings > My Xbox > My background. Note: some items can’t be made transparent due to usage rights/restrictions for certain images.

TV updates – A number of updates to the live TV experience are available today and new featureshave been added toadditional countries including:

TV trending in OneGuide – As you scan the OneGuide TV listings, you can see which shows are trending with a “Trending on Xbox” or “Trending on Twitter” note and icon within the details for each show. Currently, Xbox TV trending is available to all Xbox One owners in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, and Twitter trending is available in the United States.

Live TV trending (new countries) –France, Germany, Brazil and Mexico now have the ability to see live TV trending data in Xbox OneGuide.

Improved control of TVs, set-top boxes and audio/video receivers – Xbox One works even better with more devices. Updates to the IR blasting database for new models have been added and address issues reported by our fan community.

“Trick play” with Xbox One Digital TV Tuner – Xbox One Digital TV Tuner owners in supported countries (United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) are now able to see video frames when fast-forwarding or rewinding paused TV on Xbox One consoles.

Live TV streaming on Windows Phone and Android – Live TV streaming on Windows Phone and Android devices for Xbox One Digital TV Tuner owners has been added in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

OneGuide for the Netherlands – Support for OneGuide is being added for Xbox Live members in the Netherlands.

In the end, he states that both the passion and enthusiasm they’ve seen from the Xbox Live community, helps Xbox deliver the best gaming experience, and they can’t wait to see what other ideas the community shares with them. He gives thanks to the community for the feedback and encourages us to stay tuned for more Xbox One updates.

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